A Most Excellent Solution

So I put my kids in bed at 8:30 tonight. By 9:30 I had had it. I was trying to clean the kitchen so I could get ready for bed and I had to stop what I was doing every 2 minutes to tell one of them to get back in bed, and tell the other one to stop reading and turn the light off, or stop jumping on the bed or whatever else it was that they were doing to keep from going to sleep. I am in the kitchen thinking how mad I was that I couldn't get anything done because I had to keep dealing with the whole bed time thing. Then it came to me. If they were so wide awake and wanting to be out of bed, they could come and help me clean the kitchen. Well, let me just tell ya. Cleared that whole problem up right then and there. I have never seen three children get so tired so fast. They started crying that they needed to go to sleep because it was late and they are doing testing in school this week and their teachers said they needed to get a good nights sleep. Well "TOO BAD!" was my reply, "YOU ARE HELPING ME GET THIS KITCHEN CLEAN!" By the time they were finished they ran right back into bed and I haven't heard a thing from them since. Why didn't I think of that 10 years ago??? Ok, so I didn't have any kids 10 years ago but still.